Freshly Exhumed writes: In the 1950s, self-taught inventor Stanford Ovshinsky created an entirely new realm of materials science, which in turn has given new life to the engineering of semiconductors, solar energy, and electric cars. Although not a well known name like Tesla or Edison, today's high tech world prominently uses a bevy of Ovshinsky's inventions, such as: an environmentally friendly nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) battery, which has been widely used in laptop computers, digital cameras, cell phones, and electric and hybrid cars; continuous web multi-junction flexible thin-film solar energy laminates and panels; flat screen liquid crystal displays; rewritable CD and DVD discs; hydrogen fuel cells; and nonvolatile phase-change memory. He founded a whole field of electronics known as ovonics, covering energy conversion principles in physical use. Stanford Ovshinsky died of prostate cancer Wednesday at his home in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan at age 89.